Those of us who have lately been feeling pangs of nostalgia for Michael Douglas will no longer have to rush home by 6:30 to catch the two-time Oscar winner's baritone announcing the NBC Nightly News. So grab an ice pick, make a rabbit stew—whatever's most appropriate to commemorate a cinematic renaissance for the 65-year-old Douglas, who seems to have spent much of the past decade in the company of a nine iron, his dazzling second wife, Catherine Zeta-Jones, or their two young children, Dylan, 10, and Carys, 7. (Sadly, Douglas' 31-year-old son, Cameron, with exwife Diandra was recently imprisoned for dealing drugs.) If production gods smile upon us, Kirk's eldest son will be seen as Liberace in a Steven Soderbergh–directed biopic, a casting choice as bizarre as it is genius. But before donning the fur, he'll be playing it greedier and scummier than ever as Gordon Gekko in Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, and this month he stars in an indie gem called Solitary Man, in which he portrays a man possessing the skills to coax women less than half his age into bed...and no, it's not a documentary.

ELLE: I'd imagine growing up Hollywood royalty made for a sexy youth. Did you ever experience a Mrs. Robinson scenario?Michael Douglas: Yes, I did. There were a couple friends of my mother's when I was 16 and they were 30. I wouldn't want to get any of them in trouble, but they're probably all dead by now.

ELLE: Did your mother ever find out?MD: She will now.

ELLE: Your father portrays himself in his 1990 autobiography, The Ragman's Son, as a guy who seemed to particularly enjoy seducing his costars, even while he was married to your mother. Did you ever bring a woman home and feel like your dad was perhaps working to impress her?MD: I wouldn't even dare bring one home with him around. Look, he's been happily married for 55 years, so I don't want to get into this in great depth, but he's always been an outrageous flirt, and he takes no prisoners. In the years before I met Catherine, there were a couple ladies who met him to whom he gave his most impressive showing. But that's healthy.

ELLE: So you didn't want to kill him?MD: Nah. You can't slay Spartacus.

ELLE: In Fatal Attraction, you played a guy who is stalked by a psychotic jilted lover. What's the closest experience you've had with a so-called bunny boiler?MD: I remember a nut job back there in college during those sexually free days of the '60s when you didn't have to worry about a whole lot. Except maybe crabs. You never hear about crabs anymore, do you?

ELLE: Not a ton, no.MD: I remember one woman who'd been pursuing me, and I'd gone back home and was in bed with another lady. At an unbelievably inopportune moment, she popped out of the closet. Let's just say that took care of the rest of the night.

ELLE: So you drowned her in the bathtub?MD: No, but I did change the locks.

ELLE: What's the most wounding thing a woman has ever said to you?MD: Getting no response whatsoever is probably the most demeaning. The French always had a way of ignoring you.

ELLE: The French? It's amazing to speak with a man able to speak authoritatively about them as a population.MD: It's a gross generalization, but when I was younger I found that French women were always saying, "I'm angry with you"—but it was a dance where what they'd really like you to do is attack.

ELLE: You've long said that British tabloids fabricated a supposed sex addiction in the '90s. Did being perceived as sexually insatiable really hurt you?MD: It wasn't a question of hurting. It just pissed me off. And the thing got enough play that it became a preconception that people had when they met me, just like growing up people had preconceptions because my father was a movie star.

ELLE: Would you be comfortable if the world knew your number of sexual partners?MD: Let's just say I wouldn't pull a Charlie Manson and carve it into my forehead.

ELLE: If you could go back and have a do-over on any event that happened with a woman, what would it be?MD: When I was working on pictures with my father, there were a couple leading ladies to whom I wish I'd expressed how I felt rather than being too cool or too shy. There was this beautiful Austrian actress named Senta Berger, who's probably in her seventies. I wish I'd just opened my mouth.

ELLE: You apparently overcame that shyness. When you met your wife in 1998, you told her, "I want to father your children." I can't imagine the confidence it would take to unleash that one.MD: That's not a line I'd used before, but I don't know if I'd ever been so inebriated on a first date. Also, I had seen some quote about her liking older men that gave me the confidence to approach her.

ELLE: Then, for nearly a year, you saw each other and shared nary a kiss. Where did you find the patience and self-control?MD: I was being such a ridiculous gentleman. Plus, we'd see each other only sporadically over that year, and it always seemed like her brother would be meeting us at the end of a date. I saw it as a polite way for her to keep things neutral.

ELLE: Imagine that for your tenth wedding anniversary, your wife tells you to go off and enjoy a night with a famous person of your choice. Whom would you choose?MD: Boy oh boy. I've always liked Tina Turner.

ELLE: Are you just saying Tina Turner because it won't get you in trouble?MD: Possibly.

ELLE: If you returned the gift to your wife, whom do you imagine she'd go for?MD: Sarkozy would be pretty interesting.

ELLE: In Solitary Man, you play a fiftysomething whose stock come-on to much younger women is that as an older man, he's gifted in ways no 18-year-old is. You're 65. Is there truth to this come-on?MD: Yeah, sure. I think so.

ELLE: How so? Please, could you tell me?MD: You mean tell you orally. Orally, I could try, yeah.